Cyprus in our hearts

BEN G. FRANK

“Welcome to Cyprus, the island of love.” Those were the words of the Greek Cypriot driver who picked us up at the Larnaka International Airport on the south shore of this majestic island nestled in the northeastern end of the beckoning blue and romantic Mediterranean Sea.

Within seconds, he put on a CD of Greek dance music à la “Never on Sunday.” If it had been an airplane instead of a small van, we’d have been dancing in the aisles.

“You see,” continued the driver, “Cyprus is the island of love, and home of the Greek goddess, Aphrodite.” Digging into Greek mythology, we recalled that Aphrodite is “the Greek goddess of love, beauty, pleasure and procreation.” Her Roman equivalent is the goddess Venus. Indeed, every guide worth his/her salt takes visitors to a lookout post near Pafos above the gleaming Mediterranean to show you “Aphrodite’s Rock.” She’s known as the “Lady of Cyprus,” and this island claims her birth at the rock.

Pafos, well known as a beautiful resort town on the island’s southwest coast, has a population of 80,000. It’s our base. In Hellenistic times, Pafos was an important trading centre, and the country’s capital. We walked by many signs of ancient life still being excavated in the area around the town’s harbor, as well as many monuments that have been preserved and opened to travelers. We toured the prominent fort at the entrance to Pafos Harbor. Make sure you visit the nearby archeological park.

We stopped at the Constantinou Brothers’ Asimina Suites Hotel, which serves a magnificent breakfast buffet, reminding us of the humongous morning repasts in nearby Israel, about a half-hour flight and eight hours away by boat. The British led the wave of visitors here so, like England, Cyprus traffic moves on the left-hand side of the road, not on the right. Many of the guests at Asimina Suites are English, though one frequently sees tourist signs in Russian. The Russians rank number two in visitors. Many eastern Europeans have settled in Cyprus, a member of the European Union.

Wherever we went, the similarities between Cyprus and Israel were evident: the blue Mediterranean, the hills, the beaches, the seaside restaurants, the solar installation on roofs, the warm weather in October.

At the beginning of the third century BCE, a Jewish settlement on the island apparently began to develop on a large scale. By the early seventh century CE, Jews lived in Pafos, Famagusta, Nicosia and Limassol. In the 12th century, Benjamin of Tudela found Jewish sects on the island. Fast forward to 1902, and Theodor Herzl discusses a plan to settle Jews in Cyprus. In 1951, only 165 Jews reside on the island; by 1970, it’s down to about 25.

Cyprus was ruled by the British from 1878 to 1960 and was historically significant in the struggle for the Jewish state. In 1947-48, the United Kingdom stopped Jewish refugee ships trying to get to Palestine and deported the occupants to detention camps in Cyprus. The forcible transfer involved 51,000 Jews, and Britain kept many refugees there until after Israel’s independence in May 1948, and even into 1949.

The Brits still retain several bases on the island. Parts of the movie Exodus were filmed in Cyprus, which has a long, tragic history, including the Turkish invasion in 1974. The Turks still hold about one-third of the northern part of the island. I was told that all countries, except Turkey, recognize the Republic of Cyprus as the legal government of the entire island, as opposed to the self-declared Turkish Republic. Relations between Israel and Cyprus are “solid,” especially since the two are working on joint exploitation of oil and gas fields near the island.

Visitors to Cyprus will have a hard time finding any signposts or mention of the detention camps, but many Cypriots know about them and a large number of the island’s seniors still remember them. A major camp was at Caraolos, north of Famagusta in today’s Turkish-occupied north. In an interview with Chabad Rabbi Arie Zeev Raskin, I asked him about the camps and he told me he has been trying to get signs or a plaque installed. Supposedly, there is a signpost in the port at Larnaca.

Raskin arrived in Cyprus in 2003 and lists among his accomplishments a synagogue, a mikvah, a kosher-certifying agency, a cemetery fund and special summer programs, as well as Shabbat services. Kosher food can be purchased at Chabad House. The rabbi said the centre has just started the first Jewish kindergarten, and four or five bar mitzvahs and Jewish weddings take place each year. I stopped at the community centre one Sunday morning and stepped into a beehive of activity. Services had just finished and young people were sitting down to a hearty breakfast.

About 400 Jewish families, reside in Cyprus, among them Russian Jews and Israelis. North Americans who visit Israel often stop off in Cyprus for its welcoming people, archeological sites, golf courses and restaurants. More than two million travelers vacation here each year and, of course, it has been a popular vacation haunt for years for Israelis. Raskin noted the fact that many Israelis – he put the number at approximately 6,000 a year – arrive on the island for a civil marriage ceremony. It is estimated that the total cost of obtaining a civil marriage is about $2,000 US.

Visitors enjoy a large amount of sunshine, with an average of more than 11 hours daily during the summer. As Lawrence Durrell writes in Bitter Lemons, the dawns and sunsets in Cyprus are “unforgettable, better even than those of Rhodes, which I always believed were unique in their slow Tiberian magnificence.”

Like Durrell, we left the island with Cyprus “in our hearts,” which is a motto of Cyprus tourism, visitcyprus.com. The Cyprus Jewish Community Centre-Chabad Lubavitch of Cyprus is at Diogenous 7B, Larnaca (357-24-828-770, jewishcyprus.com).

Ben G. Frank, journalist, travel writer, is the author of the just-published The Scattered Tribe: Traveling the Diaspora from Cuba to India to Tahiti and Beyond (Globe Pequot Press), as well as A Travel Guide to Jewish Europe, Third Edition, A Travel Guide to Jewish Russia and Ukraine and A Travel Guide to the Jewish Caribbean and South America (Pelican Publishing Company). His blog is bengfrank.blogspot.com, and you can follow him on Twitter, @BenGFrank.

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